Family & Disputes
Common estate planning myths
A short list of widely held beliefs that are not accurate, each of which causes real harm.
Victor Nunes
25 articles by Nunes
Family & Disputes
Sibling relationships after a parent dies
The parent was frequently the thing holding the relationships together, and the estate is where that becomes visible.
Probate
When an executor gets it wrong
Beneficiaries have remedies, and the threshold for using them is higher than dissatisfaction.
Family & Disputes
Mediation for estate disputes
A process that addresses what estate disputes are actually about, which litigation is structurally unable to do.
Business Succession
Selling to employees
Employee ownership preserves continuity and carries tax advantages, alongside genuine complexity and cost.
Beneficiary Designations
Minors, young adults and staged inheritance
Money arriving outright at eighteen or twenty-one is a common default and rarely what anyone would choose deliberately.
Wills & Trusts
Where to keep the documents
A will that cannot be found is treated as revoked in many states, which makes storage a legal question rather than a housekeeping one.
Business Succession
Preparing a business for sale or transfer
The work that determines the price happens years before any conversation with a buyer.
Probate
Selling estate property
The largest single task in most administrations, with authority questions and tax consequences worth understanding first.
Beneficiary Designations
Coordinating designations with the rest of the plan
Each form is completed separately, and the combined result is rarely what anyone intended.
Family & Disputes
Blended families and competing claims
A surviving spouse and children from a previous relationship have structurally opposed interests, and plans that ignore this fail.
Estate Tax
Generation-skipping transfers
A separate tax with its own exemption, aimed at transfers that bypass a generation, and easy to trigger accidentally.
Probate
Working with beneficiaries who disagree
An executor caught between family members has specific obligations and a small number of tools that actually work.
Wills & Trusts
Updating an estate plan and when to do it
Documents drafted once and filed become inaccurate quietly, and the discovery generally comes at the worst point.
Business Succession
What happens to a sole proprietorship on death
Unlike a company, an unincorporated business does not survive its owner, and the practical consequences are immediate.
Estate Tax
Valuing an estate properly
Date-of-death values determine tax, basis and the fairness of any division, and reconstructing them later is difficult.
Beneficiary Designations
Digital assets and account access
Executors are routinely locked out of accounts they have legal authority over, and the fix is arranged in advance.
Wills & Trusts
Irrevocable trusts and what you give up
The protection comes precisely from the loss of control, which is the part people underestimate.
Business Succession
Buy-sell agreements and what they prevent
The single most important document for a business with more than one owner, and the one most often absent.
Probate
Debts after death: what survives and who pays
Family members are frequently pursued for debts they do not owe, and the rules are clearer than the collection calls suggest.
Beneficiary Designations
Payable-on-death and transfer-on-death accounts
A simple mechanism for avoiding probate on bank and investment accounts, with limitations worth understanding.
Wills & Trusts
Powers of attorney and why they matter more than the will
The documents that operate while you are alive, and whose absence causes the most immediate difficulty.
Estate Tax
Lifetime gifting and how it is treated
The gift tax rules are simpler than most people assume, and the reasons to gift are narrower than the advice suggests.
Probate
What probate involves
A court-supervised process that is less terrifying than its reputation and slower and more public than most people expect.
Wills & Trusts
Revocable trusts, and whether you need one
A widely recommended and widely oversold instrument, with genuine uses that are narrower than the marketing suggests.